Thames Path Ramble 11: Thursday 11th
June 2015 Wallingford to Goring, which is about 7 miles.
Sue, Jem, Ann, Julie, Margaret H., Ian and I weaved our way through a
very pretty part of Wallingford to the River Thames. This included an area
where the artist George Dunlop Leslie lived, the small St Leonard’s church with
some Anglo-Saxon parts and cottages, some with elaborate patterned brickwork
and others with overhanging first floors.
We passed the point where there was
once a wharf, where goods from further downstream were unloaded, but today we just
saw a series of rowers being shouted at by coxes, almost hidden low down in the
stern of the boats.
The African Queen, the cruising hotel boat, glided past in glorious
sunshine. It is a converted Dutch barge, based at Mapledurham and can accommodate
up to 12 passengers.
It is along
here that the Thames Path passes the newish and large Oxford
Brookes University Boat House. This long
stretch of the river Thames is wide and straight, ideal for rowing. We were surrounded by very open lush
countryside.
Carmel College, a mainly Jewish boarding school, occupied Mongewell Park,
a former RAF site, on the opposite bank for some time. The school closed in
1997 and the site developed, but many of the unusual buildings, some designed by
Sir Basil Spence, remain. The Georgian
boathouse, with defensive looking addition to the side, would make an attractive
picture in itself.
On the western bank (where we were walking) nearby in Cholsey was Fair Mile
Hospital. It opened in 1870 as the County Lunatic Asylum for Berkshire and
closed in 2003. Over 300 houses are there now.
A prehistoric road, the Ridgeway path/ Icknield Way passes and crosses
the Thames around here. There are several sites where ferries once crossed the
water including the Papist Way Ferry crossing to Little Stoke. Cholsey Marsh Nature Reserve is nearby and we heard cuckoos.
Agatha Christie is buried in the churchyard
of St Mary’s Church, Cholsey.
The path then goes under a pair of beautiful railway bridges (Moulsford Bridge)
which have been built immediately next to each other. The first bridge was
originally built around 1839 by Brunel to carry two broad gauge railway tracks
across The Thames and has four arches which were constructed with skewed
brickwork - the tracks were subsequently changed to four standard gauge tracks. A
second bridge was built in 1892 and they are connected to each other with steel
girders. Maintenance or repair work was
being carried out.
Leaving the
River Thames at this point, we found our way through Moulsford Preparatory School sports ground to the A329
at Offlands Farm . Here we turned left and
walked along the road into Moulsford , then left again down Ferry Lane to reach
the Beetle and Wedge public house (Beetle is a mallet and was used to hit the
wedge when splitting trees into planks prior to floating down the Thames (late
1700s). H G Wells stayed here while writing Mr Polly. We stopped and had a drink here; the weather
was very warm and we needed some extra stops. It was very pleasant on their
outside seating area, by the old ferry crossing, people were eating lunch
outside and the African Queen moored and more people arrived.
Back along the
river, we picnicked at some tables and benches put there just for the purpose (?)
– a delightful spot, where we watched several Red Kites flying above.
Next, we passed
Cleeve Lock and Weir and more very desirable residences, boathouses and, on the
opposite bank, Rossini at the Leatherne Bottel restaurant to which the AA
restaurant guide has awarded two rosettes.
We continued to
Streatley and noticed that the hillsides become steeper down to the river and
so more dramatic. The river is constricted here and passes through a gap in the
hills known as the Goring Gap, with the Berkshire Downs on one side and the Chilterns
to the north-east. It is here that the
Ridgeway National Path crosses the Thames, en route from Avebury to Ivinghoe Beacon.
Just before reaching
the town the path left the river and went across fields to reach St Mary's
Church. Another short road took us to the main road, along which we visited the
ice-cream kiosk at The Swan at Streatley, a large hotel complex occupying a
prize position beside the river and bridge overlooking the picturesque weirs, lock
and a wooded island.
You couldn’t
fail to be impressed by the grandeur of the place and no wonder artists and poets
have been and are attracted to the area.
Finally, we crossed the river to Goring to finish the walk.
